To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.
-George Orwell

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Disappointment

By The Big Guy

Senior Contributor

I’m disappointed. It’s been in the back of my mind and I wasn’t sure about what but now I know.
I’m disappointed in the Obama Administration.

I always think back to
that editorial cartoon, the one by Mike Luckovich that ran in his Atlanta
Journal-Constitution and hundreds of other publications around the country just
two days after Election Day 2008. “Day One” it read across the top and there
was a drawing of President Obama with scotch tape and glue and a stapler
piecing a destroyed Constitution back together.

Brilliant. People were
filled with hope. I was filled with hope and the promise of better days to
come. Hell, the Nobel crowd gave the new President their Peace Prize a couple of hours after
he took the oath of office. Now here we are almost six years in to a two-term
Presidency with over two full years to go and talk has turned to Hillary.

Yes I know there are
dozens of sites I can go to and come up with a list of all the fine
accomplishments of the Obama Administration. However, I have a feeling the promises
not achieved, the executive orders that have had to stand in for actual
legislation is a longer list. The Affordable Care Act that passed Congress
before the House turned red will accomplish much, despite the glut of
compromises that made it less than it could have been. Perhaps some future act
of Congress will make it into the law for which we had hoped. And gay rights
have swept the country just of its own weight with an assist from that
Constitution mentioned earlier.

I am also completely
aware of the fact that Obama came into office with the equivalent of his hands
tied behind his back and one foot in a bucket of quick setting concrete what
with two wars in progress, costing this country billions of dollars and
horrible numbers of lives every month, along with the worst recession in eighty
years. Still, after eight years of a gang that did what they wanted,
interpreting laws as they deemed necessary, we were hungry for change and
expected much. It took President Obama two years to learn that every time he
moved to the center to compromise, the center point would shift to the right. By then the House gavel had also shifted to the right. Game over.

And now the country has
gone into election mode. Congress, which barely works as it is, will take most
of the rest of the year off. Thirty-six working days until Election Day. I'm not expecting the House or the Senate to change hands, which pretty much
means the next two years are going to look a lot like the last four. What of
immigration reform, women’s rights, student loan reform, rewriting the tax
code, infrastructure repair, and the minimum wage? Yeah.

I share your sense of malaise regarding Obama. If only he weren't so detached and academic and could have reached out to people---a touch of Bill Clinton's populism---I think he might have accomplished more, although I agree he came in with the dice loaded against him.

XGrumpy said in a different way what I would have said had he not said it.Obama has been a disappointment, without considering the dice were loaded. It will be more of the same if Hillary runs and wins. We do need a strong man in the whitehouse; We need another Bill Clinton.